Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine's Day for the Un-Romantic

Confession: I ordered my own Valentine this year. My favorite local cupcake shop was offering customized vegan conversation hearts cakes, and I didn't want to risk the boyfriend Paul forgetting to place my order. So I placed my own order at Muddy's Bake Shop. I even chose my "conversation" phrase:

I did make Paul pick it up and pay me back, however. This adorable vanilla cake is so moist and delicious, and the frosting is sinfully sweet. Muddy's, a kitschy East Memphis bakery, always has at least one (sometimes two) vegan cakes in their bakery case. And they can always make vegan cakes and cupcakes by request. I'll do a full post on Muddy's very soon.

Paul arrived at home with my cake shortly after I got home from the office. Then we headed to Blue Fin Sushi Lounge for the obligatory VDay dinner. Here we are at Blue Fin:

I'm not romantic at all (as evidenced by the choice of words on my VDay cake). In fact, romantic gestures make me barf. But I do appreciate a good reason to spend my hand-earned cash on tasty restaurant eats. One thing the boyfriend Paul and I can always agree on is Asian food. Be it Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, whatever. We like it all. This Valentine's Day, we opted for sushi.

We started with cocktails and a plate of Edamame Hummus with Crispy Chips:

I've made edamame hummus at home, but nothing compares to the version at Blue Fin. They pour a little chili oil over the top before serving, and it makes a world of difference.

After dinner, we headed to the Flying Saucer, a downtown bar boasting the largest selection of specialty brews in town. Paul ordered his favorite hefeweizen, Ayinger Brau-Weisse. I opted for my most favorite beer of all time, Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier — a smoked beer from Germany. I took this pic with the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone:

14 comments:

What a cute cake! My bf and I often opt for Asian, too- plenty of options for all diets. Today we had a "day date" since we both had to work at night. I worked the Valentine's Day class at the Natural Gourmet, which was so cute to see all these couples making their dinner together!

totally love Ayinger brews and the brauweiss is my fav too! I think you have a winner on your hands!smoked beers are weird on my palate. I feel like I should be chewing something but I'm drinking...sensory cross wire!

Awww what a cool cake!! I don't like conversation hearts at all, but I like the idea of making them into a cake. How fun!!

Although we didn't do sushi for V-Day, that would have been a great idea. My boyfriend and I also like anything Asian food... Japanese being my favorite first, and Chinese being his. Either way, Asian food is always a win-win for us!

Glad to see you two had a great evening! :) Cool Hipstamatic app by the way--nifty photo!